


Counting Stars

by bbggoodd



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, But there's so much love, F/M, Not Focused On Romance, Not Season/Series 03 Compliant, Post-Mount Weather, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sad with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-04-12
Packaged: 2018-06-01 19:47:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6533986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bbggoodd/pseuds/bbggoodd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She doesn’t know the names of the Grounders she killed beyond the wall to her left or the ones she killed at TonDC or the names of the people she killed at Mount Weather. She only knows the count is somewhere near a thousand, so she counts to a thousand, because even though she doesn’t know many names at all, each number matters. </p>
<p>or</p>
<p>“Bellamy, you’re the goddamn sun.” He stays quiet at that for a long moment. </p>
<p>She flushes, but doesn’t take her words back.</p>
<p>“Clarke.” Bellamy says slowly. “I’m not the sun anymore than you are. We’re just people, trying to survive the night. That’s all we can be.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counting Stars

**Author's Note:**

> This is fucking sad guys, but it wouldn't leave me alone. I literally wrote this in three hours and had to upload it. Let me know what you think.

Vaguely, in the background of it all, she knows she is slowly losing her mind. 

She’s in a tree, perched on a strong branch with her legs tucked into her chest and her back against rough bark, when she realizes she is counting up all leaves in front of her eyes. She’s on number fifty when she snaps out of it, breath getting trapped in her throat. She asks herself why she was counting, when did she even start counting, but she doesn’t have an answer and it shakes her to the core. Swallowing hard, she climbs down slowly, careful of her steps and of broken branches. The backpack — acquired from a trader Grounder — strapped around her chest is filled with only the essentials, but it makes the climb down uncomfortable and by the time she reaches the earth, she’s tired and angry.

She walks quickly, going in what she thinks is north, and her mind starts involuntarily counting the number of steps she takes. This time she gets to fourteen before realizing it’s happening again, and she shakes her head roughly, blonde hair hitting the side of her face as she does. She takes a deep breath and continues down the path, this time forcing her mind to stay blank and far away from numbers — albeit completely unsuccessfully. 

About half an hour or several counts to one hundred later, she thinks she hears someone scream her name, her _actual_ name, and she pulls out her long knife immediately. Her stance goes into one of attack, and she twirls in a complete circle, brandishing her weapon and an animalistic growl. But there’s only silence. 

The situation makes her sway a little, and her face morphs back into one of confusion. She asks herself if she’s hearing things, if she’s reacting properly, and then decides it’s better to be paranoid and alive, than naive and dead. Her breath is coming out harshly as she forces herself to walk again. She doesn’t know where she’s going, but it looks awfully familiar and reminds her, for some reason, of Finn Collins. The second his face makes an appearance in her mind, she hears her name being screamed again, and she turns around quicker this time, knife already in hand. In front of her, she sees an army of Grounders running at her, Lexa in front, decked out in full body armor and war makeup. 

The scream in her throat dies as Lexa yells, “Charge!” and she starts to run, run, run. She hops over a low lying root she in another life remembers her co-leader — _him, him, him_ — telling her to avoid; she skids instinctively under a branch to the left of the path she is running on; she sprints left and right, past trees and berry bushes, past the ghost of cut off fingers and little girls, past a rope that still hangs from a tree, past a dried up and dead orchid. She runs until she’s in front of a wall, a wall made of metals and wood, a wall that is hardly even a wall. The ground in front of her is black, white and green — with areas littered with ash, with bones, with wild grass. 

Looking in horror at the place she once called home, she turns around to face Lexa and her army. Her fingers grip the hilt of her knife and she holds it above her head, thinking about how she killed three hundred Grounders a year ago (a year ago? six months ago? last week? yesterday?) and how if she has to, she will do it again — but there’s no one in front of her. The woods are peaceful, quiet even, with no signs of armies or traitors. Only ghosts. 

She can’t help but drop not only the knife, but also her knees to the ground at the revelation, and that’s when that vague thought that she’s losing her mind comes to fruition. She rolls onto her back and her blonde hair mixes with dirt and dead leaves as she stares up at the clouds that she once called home. The sky is a deep purple, and she doesn’t know when it started turning to night — only that when she was on the tree, she had felt the sun on her skin. For a long time, she watches the sky change until the only light is that the moon is giving off and she’s counting all the stars she can. She starts on her left, just past the wall, but only makes it to ten before she loses her place and starts over. Tears fill her eyes as she counts, and suddenly the count turns into bodies and she’s counting the number of deaths on her hands. She starts with Finn and Maya — because she can never start the count without them leading — and continues with vague numbers. She doesn’t know the names of the Grounders she killed beyond the wall to her left or the ones she killed at TonDC or the names of the people she killed at Mount Weather. She only knows the count is somewhere near a thousand, so she counts to a thousand, because even though she doesn’t know many names at all, each number matters. 

Sometime later, when her eyes start to flutter, she remembers Wells, and his memory forces her to stand up and drag her exhausted body to his grave, or rather, to his buried body. She doesn’t even know which one is his, not anymore. Vaguely, she thinks it’s the one to the far left, but for all she knows, that could be Roma or Mbege or Atom. And all three of them make her think of _him_ , and the last thing she wants to do is think of the boy she left behind. So instead, she sits against the tree overlooking the dead and closes her eyes. “I’m sorry.” she whispers to the air, but mostly to Wells, mostly to her father, mostly to _him_.

Her last thought before she falls asleep is whether or not she will ever die, before realizing her punishment for her horrendous and monstrous crimes is to stay alive forever. 

—

She never sets out to move back into the Dropship, but a month later, she’s still there. For the first week and a half, she runs herself ragged by digging graves with a shovel she fashions out of a branch and a piece of metal from the wall. She buries all the bones on the land, although some are more ash than bone. Most are crushed, but some are whole, and she spends the time trying to reassemble skeletons out of respect. When there are no more bodies (people? souls? bones? skeletons?) to bury, she start shuffling through the burnt tents, trying to see if anything is salvageable. She finds a couple furs that somehow survived, although now blackened, but not much else. 

She sleeps inside the Dropship, like she used to back when her people lived there, and in there she finds much more: a rifle she thinks belonged to Raven; several radios that are now dead; books from old bunkers; moonshine and medicine she used to keep stored for emergencies; a couple more knifes and weapons; and a few pencils that once belonged in a bunker. The last item makes her lose focus for an entire afternoon, and she stays inside the Dropship for hours, laying on a cot she thinks used to be her’s. 

And yet, she stays, living in a spaceship that crashed landed with 100 other people, by herself. 

—

Until one day, she’s not by herself.

She is reading one of the salvaged books — _Crime and Punishment_ by Fyodor Dostoevsky — when she hears a loud voice. She immediately jumps out of the cot, grabbing the rifle and slinging it over shoulder as she hides behind the Dropship door. The parachute that used to cover the entrance is long gone, but she makes herself small as she glances outside, using the scope on the rifle to see better. 

“I fucking miss you.” The voice says, and she almost drops the gun in surprise. She lowers the gun, keeping herself hidden, as she slides down to her knees. “But they won’t let me go back to Mount Weather anymore, so I don’t know how to feel close to you anymore.” The voice continues, and she can almost hear the alcohol. 

She watches as he takes a swig of something from a bottle, and all she can think about is his shorn hair, is his missing goggles, is his disappeared smile. She almost doesn’t want to recognize him, but she does. Of course, she does. It’s Jasper Jordan, and he’s one of her biggest heartbreaks. 

He’s over by the shallow graves she dug recently, and he’s staring at them in confusion, swaying as he purposely pours some alcohol over the dirt. “You poor bastards. Sorry not sorry I killed you.” he mutters to the graves before falling backwards clumsily and sitting in the middle of camp. If he realizes the camp is looking less like a disaster area, he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t say much of anything at all, actually, and she can only stare at him as he drinks, and then later, as he cries. 

Jasper leaves around midnight, but she only moves after she counts to thousand. Swaying herself, she walks over to the center of camp where he was sitting. His boot prints are all over the area, and he has left the now empty bottle of moonshine behind. She swallows down thoughts of Finn Collins and grabs the bottle, and goes back into the Dropship. She puts the bottle on one of the cots and starts to pack up her things. She doesn’t have much, but she does pack up a few books and the rifle along with the things she had before — a few pairs of shirts, a dirty bra, and a flashlight. She packs quickly, crying as she does, and as she straps the backpack across her chest, she realizes she has no where to go. 

She could leave to Sector 7 again and find the trader who gave her the backpack, but she doesn’t want to hear the name _Wanheda_ ever again. She could leave to Mount Weather and see if she could bury their dead, but she’s sure Kane and her mother have already attended to it. 

(Or at the very least, _he_ has. Because of course he would. He’s much better than she’ll ever be. He’s the goddamn sun, and she’s the goddamn night. He’s the king and she’s just a fraud. 

But she can’t think of _him_ right now.)

In the end, she decides to leave at first light, because even though the Grounders are no longer her biggest concern, there are bears and panthers to worry about. She doesn’t sleep at all throughout the night, and instead, sits on her cot with her back to the metal wall. The whole night she thinks of Jasper laying in this very room after being speared, and her healing him. She thinks about how much pain he was in, and how much more pain he looks to be in now. She thinks of Maya, because she never really allows herself to think of Maya, and she thinks of _him_ , because if anything she agrees with Jasper on one thing: she fucking misses him and she doesn’t know how to feel close to him anymore. 

It’s the first time she’s allowed herself to really think about it — about leaving him behind. She thinks of his dirty jacket (was it white? cream? gray?) and of his brown, soft eyes. She thinks of his freckles and wonders if she could ever count them without thinking of the people she’s murdered. She thinks of strong arms holding her so gently, of his lips on her hair, of his heart beating against her chest. She thinks about how she could have loved him, easily, if things were different. 

She thinks about how maybe she already loved him, loves him. 

She thinks about weakness.

—

The next morning, she numbly grabs her backpack, putting it on slowly, and for a while, just stands in the Dropship without moving. Deciding quickly, she moves to the ladder and for the first time since she’s been back, she climbs up to the top of the spaceship, to where she once let a man be tortured to save a man she later killed. There are still chains on the floor and some medicine scattered about. She finds Monty’s work station, and she almost cries at the sight of Miller’s beanie. She catches sight of a torn up book and she picks it up, her fingers tracing the name — _The Iliad —_ slowly. Her breath comes out in painful spurts, and she twirls when she hears the movement downstairs.

She doesn’t move, doesn’t even take out her knife. She knows who it is. She can feel it.

Through the opened hatch, she can hear Jasper speak. “See, I told you. Someone was here. Or still is here. Probably a fucking Grounder.”

His response is low, and his voice makes her shut her eyes. She grips onto the book harder and she starts to count. “Why do you think it was a Grounder?” He asks, and it’s like he already knows she’s here.

Jasper sputters. “I mean, who else would it be? They buried all their dead. God, they’re right next to _our_ dead. Like they mean the same.” he spits out, disgusted.

He doesn’t respond to that, but she can hear movement as things are tossed around and Jasper suddenly mutters, “Holy shit.” He must have given him a questioning look, because Jasper continues, “I was drinking this yesterday.” He says, almost too quietly for her to hear. “I left this outside.”

There is rapid movement at that and it sounds like guns being snapped back into place, ready to shoot. She closes her eyes and as softly as she can, sits down. She has counted to three hundred when Jasper speaks again. “There’s no one outside.” He says, and she figures he went to check the perimeter. “Do you think this is Trikru?” 

“Maybe.” And then, a second later: “Go back to Arkadia. Tell Abby that something’s off here.”

Jasper doesn’t respond right away. “I didn't tell you about this so you can order me around again.” he says, and her heart stops. For a second, she thinks he will attack or yell at Jasper for his disobedience, but instead, he merely sighs. He always did have a soft spot for the young chemist.

“I’m sorry.” He says instead, and Jasper scoffs.

“Fuck off.” Jasper growls, before, she figures, punching the metal wall. She jumps at the sound and slight vibration traveling up the ladder, clanging against the open hatch. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll go tell your precious Chancellor that the ship she and the rest of those assholes forced us on feels _off_.”

She counts to a hundred before there is movement again. “Fuck.” she cannot help but mutter under her breath as she hears boots against metal rungs. For a second, she wants to run over and close the hatch and seal herself in, but she’s always been too brave (or is it cowardly) for her own good. So instead, she stands awkwardly in the room Lincoln used to get tortured in as Miller watched and Octavia cried, holding a book that belonged to the boy climbing the ladder. 

His head pops up and it surprises the hell out of her, even though she’s expecting him. His back is to her as he raises up from the hatch, and he doesn’t turn right away. His hair is still long and curly; his shoulders still broad and strong; his back still stretching out his shirt; his hips still narrow; and his legs still powerful. She would recognize him anywhere, even from behind.

Even when his feet are on the same level as hers, he doesn’t turn to face her yet. She knows he can hear her heavy breathing and her fingers rattling against the book cover. It takes another forty counts before he turns his head slightly, as if preparing himself for an ambush. He catches her eyes and turns the full way, facing her with no fear, no hesitation. His mouth is set in a thin line, his eyes are sharp, and his jaw is clenched. 

But it’s _him_.

It’s Bellamy.

“Clarke.” Bellamy says, voice flat, and it breaks her heart. She hasn’t heard her name in over three months, and it sounds like home on his lips, even said so coldly. 

She doesn’t know what to say, and her mouth opens slightly before she closes it and nods at him. Looking down, she notices she still has the book in her hands so she sets it down where it was before walking a little closer to him.

“So, this is where you’ve been, Clarke? The fucking Dropship?” he asks roughly, his eyes bright and teeth gritted. It seems whatever plan he had to stay distant is forgotten as soon as he starts to speak. “You could live with burnt bodies but you couldn’t live with us. Wow, even for you, that’s a bit morbid.” He snaps, laughing slightly as he shakes his head.

“I haven’t….” she trails off, clearing her throat from the raspiness. “I haven't been here the whole time.” she explains. “I was…I was everywhere, and I came here accidentally.” 

Bellamy stares at her hard and sneers, eyes flashing. “Accidentally? How do you accidentally come back to the camp you ran? _We_ ran.” His voice breaks slightly, even though he squares his shoulders.

She shrugs, a sad smile on her face. “I don't know. I thought Lexa was going to kill me. I saw… her.” she finishes lamely, swallowing. “I swore I saw her and her army, but they weren’t…They were never there.” Her eyes fade away from him as she thinks back to the memory, of seeing the war armor on Lexa’s body, at seeing the hundreds of warriors ready to kill her. “I guess I went to a place I felt safe.” 

Bellamy doesn’t respond and she turns to look at him, confused at his silence. The anger that was just there has changed to something that looks more like concern or worry or bewilderedness. “You saw her army?” He repeats slowly, eyebrows furrowed.

She stares at him hard, and wonders if this is a good time to count his freckles. “I…” she starts but doesn’t finish, because she has no idea what she was going to say. 

He looked the same at first, but now that’s really looking at him — really looking — she sees the black under his eyes, she sees the scar on his cheek, she sees the way his hands shake. He looks damaged and frail, even in that strong body of his. 

“Clarke.” he repeats, and this time it’s softer, more tender. He shakes his head, letting out a sharp breath, before walking over. He puts a hand on her cheek, and she can’t help but lean into it. They were never really too tactile with each other, but that was then — when they were leaders of a bunch of delinquents and she was half in love with a boy who had a girlfriend and he was too busy burying himself in women that didn’t mean half as much as they could have. “Fuck. Do you know how much I’ve missed you? How much I’ve needed you?” He continues, a little angry and a little hurt and a little sad, dropping his hand and his head at the same time. 

She swallows, watching as his shoulders go back and forth with every harsh breath he takes. His eyes are closed beneath his fringe of hair and his fists are clenched at his side. 

He looks damaged. 

Suddenly he looks up, eyes searching hers in confusion, and that’s when she notices she’s counting out loud. “…thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen…” she’s saying, all in one breath, as fast as possible. 

She abruptly stops at twenty, eyes wide and far away. She always starts her count with Finn and Maya, and she can feel the knife in her hand plunging into Finn, she can feel the lever in her hand moving with their combined pull.

“Clarke.” He says, this time louder and sharper.

She blinks, afraid, and she’s crying. She steps backwards, almost falling over a chair, but she hardly notices as she reaches up to run a hand through her hair. She’s breathing too hard, and she feels faint so she sits down in the chair she almost fell over. Bellamy approaches her slowly before kneeling in front of her, taking her wrist in her hand. The touch sends a spark through her veins, and she grabs his wrist in retaliation. They stay like that until she’s counted up to two hundred, mumbling under her breath.

He doesn’t stop her this time.

Abby Griffin does.

—

For the first two days, Abby barely leaves her side, making her share a room and a bed, but eventually Jackson needs help with a hunter who gets gored and her mother reluctantly leaves for several hours. 

By now, she knows, the whole of Arkadia knows she has returned, although the only ones that have come to see her have been Monty and Raven. Monty came as soon as she was brought in, hugging her tightly to his chest and tearfully asking her if she was okay. Raven came the next day while her mother attended to a girl with the flu, pale and in pain as she leant against the doorway of her mother’s room in the Ark. 

“Well, look who returned. The prodigal daughter.” Raven had muttered, and it almost sounded bitter until the mechanic had limped over, clearly in pain, to get in bed with her. They hugged for a long, long time, until her mother came back with a hot plate of food.

On the third day, when the hunter gets gored, she finally risks leaving the room. She never really stayed on the Ark while it’s been on Earth, either because she was in Mount Weather or because she preferred to stay in a tent, tired of metal and buildings. But still, she knows the routes and hallways by heart, and it reminds her that she used to live on this ship in space in what seems like a completely different lifetime. 

As she passes people, she keeps her head down, her eyes trained on the floor. Most are adults or children who didn’t commit crimes on the Ark, and thus, doesn’t recognize them anyway. The first person she sees and _knows_ is Harper, of all people. She was never particularly close to Harper, but seeing her still feels like an arrow to the heart. 

“Clarke?” she whispers in her Harper way, but now she’s toting a gun instead of helping her in medical. “Oh, my God. I heard you were here, but I didn’t know if it was just rumors.”

Harper reaches for her, and at first she is afraid, but she let’s Harper move forward without attacking her. She figures if Harper wants to kill her, then at least it’s done by one of her own. But Harper doesn’t strike her; instead, she hugs her.

“Oh.” She says in surprised, but reaches around to hug Harper back.

“I never got to say thank you.” Harper says, and her voice is choked up. The blonde gives her a questioning look and Harper swallows hard. “They were torturing us in there. At Mount…” She trails off, her eyes steeling up and her shoulders squaring. “We all would have died, like Fox did. I would have…” She breathes out roughly, shaking her head. “I can still feel the chains on my wrists.” Harper admits softly, and it breaks her heart. 

“I’m sorry.” She whispers, squeezing Harper’s arm gently. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

Harper smiles sardonically. “It’s not your fault, Clarke. You knew something was fucked about that place, and we were too caught up in actual food to realize you were right. And then you saved us anyways. You’re my hero, Clarke Griffin.”

She steps back, nodding briskly, closing off. “Thanks. I have to go.” She says quickly, turning away from Harper and walking down the corridor quickly. She doesn’t realize how badly her hands are shaking until she reaches up to put her hair behind her ear. She doesn’t realize she’s counting until David Miller is watching her. Flushing, she turns around and runs, runs, runs until she’s at Raven’s gate. She doesn’t think about the fact that the electricity could be on now, or that Abby or Kane could have found out about it. She just climbs through it and leaves the camp, running into the woods as fast as she could.

—

She maybe gets mile and a half away before she breaks down in exhaustion and tears. Her knees give out and her hands catch her fall terribly, and pain shoots up throughout her body. She keeps her eyes on the dirt in front of her. Vaguely, she hears footsteps behind her and the jostling of a weapon, but the vague notion that she might be losing her mind has turned into a very distinct and apparent thought that absolutely has. She grabs her knife though just in case it’s not a hallucination, but doesn’t look up from the dirt as the sounds behind her stop.

“Are you fucking serious, Clarke?”

She takes a deep breath at the angry tone, dropping her knife. Her eyes close and she rocks backwards on her knees, so she’s sitting up. She tilts her head back, her eyes staring at treetops and the blinding sun. 

“You never came to see me.” She chokes out, and her vision gets blurry.

Bellamy growls. “Your mother wouldn't let me.” he snaps, coming to her. He falls down next to her and shakes her shoulders when she doesn’t turn to him. “Look at me.” he orders, and she lowers her head, allowing the tears that were pooling in her eyes to fall. “Why the fuck do you keep doing this? Don’t you realize how much this hurts people? Are you really that selfish?”

She narrows her eyes. His hands are still on her shoulders and they feel like heavy weights. “You think I don’t realize how much I hurt people?” she whispers in between gritted teeth. “You think it’s not all I fucking think about!” she screams at him, hands knocking away his strong arms. 

Bellamy sighs, running his hand through his messy hair. “Fuck, Clarke.” He mutters, shaking his head. “You hurt us by leaving. Why can’t you get that? You hurt _me_ by leaving.” he finishes softly, and his eyes are bright and powerful.

She stands, pushing him away, stumbling as she does. He follows her quickly, catching her before she falls to the ground. “Let go of me!” She screams, and she can’t breathe. She will never breathe again. It’s like the world is closing in on her, and her lungs are the first to go.

“Clarke!” He yells, before laughing angrily. “God, you are such a bitch, you know that?” He spits out and she almost reaches for her knife. “You almost killed my sister! You lied to me, and I get it, I do, but it doesn’t change the fact that you were willingly going to let a bomb drop on her!”

“To save your life!” She responds, whipping around to face him, her hair half in front of her eyes. “I killed all those people to save you, and then I killed all those people at Mount Weather to save her and Jasper and my mom and Kane and Raven and everyone! Everyone!” The world is closing in and she falls to her knees, before slamming her fists to the ground. “I did it to save everyone, but instead, I killed _everyone_!” She shrieks the last word out so loud, it almost echoes throughout the woods. 

“And I still love you!” He yells, his chest rapidly going up and down. A couple tears have escape his eyes, and she takes a deep breath. “You almost killed my sister. You trusted a woman that betrayed you, and made us kill people I trusted, people who trusted me. You left me, and you keep fucking running, and yet, I still love you. I love you more than I love myself, Clarke Griffin, so please, just for one second, think before you go running off again because you aren’t just hurting your mom. You aren’t just hurting Raven. You’re hurting me. You’re hurting the kids who trusted you to take care of them. You’re hurting the memory of Maya — of what she gave up to save us.”

She backs up against a tree, sliding down on it and shakes her head repeatedly. Maya and Finn are first on her list. “Stop counting! Why are you counting, Clarke?” 

“Because I don’t want to ever forget how many people I killed!” She answers roughly, fist clenching around dirt. “I’ve murdered everyone.”

Bellamy shakes his head, falling besides her on the tree. “No, Clarke. You saved everyone. Did people die along the way? Yes, but you also are the reason we’re still here. You saved us, Clarke. Without you, even before Mount Weather, half of us wouldn't be here. I need you, Clarke. They need you.”

She breathes in deeply. “Do you know what the Grounders call me? Wanheda. It means commander of death.” She tells him with tears in her eyes. He shakily breathes out and grabs her hand.

“You’re not that person. You’re Clarke Griffin, our healer, our savior. You’re my partner. You’re my…You’re my person. I won’t let you lose yourself, not to the Grounders, not to yourself.” He tightens the grip on her hand, and she can feel every one of his fingers in between hers. 

She’s so sad, so broken.

But he’s right. She is Clarke Griffin.

“How?” she chokes out, and she doesn’t even know what she’s asking. How can she keep herself, or how can she still be Clarke Griffin, or how can he still love her, or how can he love her at all? 

“By being there for you. Because if I need to be strong for you right now, I will be, Clarke. You were there for me in the past. You offered me forgiveness and you deserve the same.” He leans his forehead to hers, and she breathes in and out. The numbers, for now, have stopped. “I forgive you, and even if some of them haven't forgive you yet, most don’t even blame you a little.”

He reaches up and puts his hand on her cheek, and it feels like a home she hasn’t had in a very long time. “Finn would. My dad would.” Her voice breaks at the last word. Bellamy sighs, dropping his hand.

“You and I both know Finn would understand better than anyone else, and your father…” Bellamy swallows, leaning against the tree again. “I didn’t know your father, but he seemed like a good man. I think, all things considered, he and my mom would probably get it. I don’t know ifthey would think we were monsters, Clarke, but I do know that I don’t think you’re one, and I’d like to think you don’t think I’m one either.”

She snorts, wiping her face from tears and dirt. “Bellamy, you’re the goddamn sun.” He stays quiet at that for a long moment. 

She flushes, but doesn’t take her words back.

“Clarke.” Bellamy says slowly. “I’m not the sun anymore than you are. We’re just people, trying to survive the night. That’s all we can be.”

“I’m tired of surviving.” she admits softly, and he gives her a sharp look.

“No.” He says, his eyes bright. “I don’t ever want to hear you say that again. If you get knocked down, then fucking stand up again, Griffin. You taught me that.” He reminds her, squeezing her hand again. “We are more than this. We have to be.” He almost begs her, and she closes her eyes, shuffling over so her head is in his chest.

“But not right now, please.” she mutters, exhausted. He sighs and pulls her close to him, hugging her to his chest.

“Take your time.” He says, sounding tired himself. Closing her eyes, she lets him hold her for far too long, until it’s dark out and a Rover is heading their way, filled with panicked people worried about them.

—

The counting doesn’t stop for a while, until one day Clarke realizes she hasn’t counted in months. That revelation comes to her about a year after Bellamy Blake found her in the woods, having an utter fucking melt down. She tells him so at dinner that night. 

“I haven’t counted for a long time.” Clarke admits, biting into a piece of bread that Monty and Harper made from wheat Lexa gave them as part of their peace treaty.

Bellamy looks up from his soup, his expression blank — although she knows he’s worried. “Okay. That’s good.”

She shrugs. “I haven’t forgotten them.” she says sharply, almost snapping, and he nods, unaffected.

“I know.”

“Okay.” Clarke deflates, placing down her bread. “I just don’t count anymore, but I haven’t forgotten them.”

“I know, Clarke.” Bellamy repeats, reaching out to take her hand. She intertwines their fingers carefully and leans into him. He kisses the top of her head softly, and she looks up at him through hair and eyelashes. He precedes to kiss her forehead too, putting his hands on both her cheeks. He presses his forehead against hers and she puts her hands on his wrists, making sure to feel his pulse. 

“Ugh, enough.” 

They both jump, both flushing at the intimate moment getting interrupted, but turn to face Octavia. She looks angry at them, but not like the anger she used to have — more like the anger a sister has at a brother who’s overly affectionate with a girl in public. “You two are gross.” she wrinkles her nose, stealing Bellamy’s soup. 

Bellamy rolls his eyes and tucks Clarke into his chest. “Speaking of which, where’s Lincoln?”

Octavia smiles briefly, before taking another spoonful of soup. “At Arkadia. Kane needed him and Indra. I think Kane wants to start a trade route.”

Bellamy nods, and Clarke clears her throat. “We should talk to my mother then. I want us to be a part of it too.”

Octavia looks at her before nodding. Clarke gives her a small smile that the other girl doesn’t return, but hell, it’s better than it used to be, and Clarke understands completely. She’s still surprised Octavia agreed to move out with them, but she supposes it was more for Bellamy than for her. 

Six months after Bellamy found her in the woods, Clarke had sat her mother down — told her that she was a leader, but not Arkadia’s. She was the leader of a special group sent down who survived against all odds, and they needed her. So, with the help of Bellamy and Raven, she told everyone that they would be moving to live by the ocean and anyone, delinquent or not, could come with. Most of the original people came with her, as well as a few guards and an engineer. Jasper stayed behind, but she doesn’t blame him. Although he’s finally talking to Monty again, so maybe things will change in the future. 

But now six months later, with cabins being built and lives being restarted, it finally feels like they are more than _this._ They are the sun and the moon and the night and the day. They are peace and war and pain and love. 

Now, instead of counting the dead, she counts the inventions Monty and Wick bring forth. Now, instead of counting the dead, she counts the laughs Raven chokes out in between hugs. Now, instead of counting the dead, she counts the number of books she shares with the man she loves.

Now, instead of counting the dead, Clarke counts the freckles on Bellamy’s face as he kisses her. 

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't want to include their first kiss or anything like that, because ultimately it wasn't a romantic story. It was a girl dealing with a shitload of tragedies and a boy who still loves her despite of them. But I hope you liked it. It was unbeta'd but if there's any major mistakes, let me know. 
> 
> Also I know I need to update Lost Somewhere in Outer Space, but this season has kinda taken the life out of me. I will though. 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading!   
> xSandy


End file.
